To avoid doing lots of unnecessary work in the garden, field, orchard, or food forest, first figure out the factor that is most limiting your yield. Announcement to all the mathaphobes out there: No numerical calculations will be necessary. Instead, observation, imagination, and experimentation will play the major roles in this endeavor. Rather than reading books and asking experts (both great tactics when properly employed) you will save time and energy by identifying your most limiting factor, and focusing on it. Knowledge of what is most lacking will allow you to increase your yield with minimal work. The concept is easily understood by the example of Epsom salts use in the vegetable garden.
Many gardening books and blogs advise using Epsom salts by sprinkling them around plants or dissolved in irrigation water. Lush plants and bumper crops of tomatoes and peppers are the promised results. And it works like a miracle for some gardeners because Epsom salts provides magnesium, a micronutrient essential for plant growth. If your garden has a magnesium deficiency, Epsom salts will work like a charm. For gardeners who regularly add compost, fertilizers, or other amendments containing magnesium, Epsom salts will add nothing but a trip to the store for an unnecessary purchase, because magnesium is not a limiting factor in their gardens.
What about nitrogen? Lots of attention is paid to nitrogen by growers of all kinds and rightly so--adequate nitrogen means healthy green foliage and lots of ability to photosynthesize. Along with potassium and phosphorus, it's a macronutrient, and the absence of sufficient amounts leads to stunted growth and crop failure. Planting of nitrogen-fixing plants alongside fruit and other trees to supply nitrogen to them as they grow is sometimes recommended. There is insufficient research to support the efficacy of this practice, but, assuming for the moment that it works, it is worth the effort only if nitrogen is a limiting factor.
Spitting distance from my orchard, a forest is renewing itself on abandoned farmland. Lack of nitrogen fixers has not impeded the growth of towering black cherry, silver maple, and tulip poplar, nor the furious undergrowth of spice bush and pawpaw. The occasional black locust tree or patch of clover is insignificant.
Logic tells me that this dense green jungle is tapping a source of usable nitrogen. The soil is clay of the sort usually cursed by gardeners; however, clay is unique among soil particles in its ability to attract and hold positively charged ions including ammonium, a source of nitrogen. If you have heavy clay soil as many of us do, it is more likely that your limiting factors are poor drainage, soil compaction that inhibits root growth, and lack of moisture during dry spells. One tactic for mitigating these factors is planting trees close together to shade the ground and moderate temperature extremes. More moisture is retained and the soil doesn't bake into something resembling concrete.
In my orchard I'm encouraging native shrubs and small trees on the periphery to provide leaf litter and shade. Their roots will help with soil compaction, while above ground portions will support native insect and bird populations. The orchard is on a slope so waterlogged soil isn't a problem; logs, stumps, or stones if you've got them, placed strategically, can slow down run off and increase infiltration. Unless nitrogen is your limiting factor, such techniques will to lead to more success in the long run than planting nitrogen fixing nurse trees.
A very real problem for many gardeners is marauding insects that devour plants and severely limit yields. Advice to improve soil to or plant extra crops for bugs is well-meant and marginally helpful, but doesn't get to the crux of the matter: the ecosystem is severely out of balance. Neither poor soil nor lack of space to plant extra are your limiting factors--an unbalanced ecosystem with few predators for crop munching bugs is the predominant problem. Here's where things get tricky because addressing this factor requires long term commitment and community cooperation. Creating habitat for beneficial insects birds and stopping the spraying of harmful chemicals over a critical mass of land is necessary to correct imbalances. Since the landscaping practices of neighbors is most likely out of their control, many gardeners struggle with insect damage perpetually, resorting to organic sprays and traps. Under such circumstances one does the best one can. Over-planting, strategically-timed planting, and insect-excluding row covers can be helpful in this situation.
Determining limiting factors is just a version of the principle of least effort for greatest effect. Rather than simply diving into the elements that seem popular and fun, it is best to observe and discover the most limiting factors and address them to the best of your ability. Then there's more time for sitting in your favorite chair with a preferred beverage, and basking in the glory of all that green.
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